How Working Mothers Find Work/Life Balance?

How do women balance careers with their responsibilities as mothers and wives? It takes energy, patience, hard work and (I can only imagine) tons of creativity.

A friend who’s married with two children and who works full-time recently told me, “You have no idea how profoundly your life changes once you have kids. By the time, I’ve taken care of my kids and of my husband, I have no energy or time left for myself.” Millions of women, however, somehow manage to do it all, often at the cost of their “me-time.”

“But the allure of business trips for women is all the greater precisely because women tend to be the primary managers of the nitty-gritty of home life, segueing from the corporate world to the domestic realm.”

On top of all the responsibilities, women often have to deal with the judgment of others. One woman who has three children told the Times: “You meet all these investors, and they’re all men. They all look at me, and they always ask, ‘Oh, and how often do you travel?’ It’s such a loaded question. I’m now going to look like a bad mom or a bad portfolio manager.”

Therein lies the dilemma: can a woman work hard enough to succeed in her career without coming across as a negligent mother? And why doesn’t anyone look at working dads and say, “Oh, and how often doyoutravel?”